Category: History
-
The Final Days of Roberto Clemente
A Hall of Famer’s Last Mission Became His Greatest Act of Humanity By Bill Coleman On a warm autumn afternoon in 1972, baseball fans watched one of the game’s greatest players achieve a milestone that seemed to seal a perfect career. Just three months later, he would be gone. The story of Roberto Clemente is…
-
La Insólita Historia de las Tarjetas de Béisbol Venezolanas de Topps (1959–1968)
By Bill Coléman Baseball Purist received such a popular response from our Latino readers for our previous post titled The Unusual Story of Topps Venezuelan Baseball Cards (1959-1968) that we have decided to repost it in Spanish as well. Enjoy!! Baseball Purist recibió una respuesta tan positiva de nuestros lectores latinos por nuestra publicación anterior,…
-
No Game for Old Men
Leonard “Bones” McCoy: Admiral, wouldn’t it be easier to put an experienced crew back on the ship?James T. Kirk: Galloping around the cosmos is a game for the young, Doctor. From the movie: Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan Evidently, so is the game of baseball. We examined the current, top 100 position players in terms…
-
The Crazy Life of Rube Waddell
By Bill Coleman There have been baseball stars. There have been baseball legends. And then there was George Edward “Rube” Waddell, the flame throwing left-hander who may have been the strangest superstar the sport has ever seen. Author’s Note: “Rube” began as slang for an unsophisticated country bumpkin in the mid-19th century. It was a…
-
The Unusual Story of Topps Venezuelan Baseball Cards (1959-1968)
By Bill Coleman Ink, Gum, and Caracas Dreams: When Topps Took Baseball Cards to Venezuela In the late 1950s, as America’s pastime stretched its cultural reach far beyond U.S. borders, one unlikely export followed close behind: the baseball card. For Topps, already the dominant force in the hobby, the decision to produce cards in Venezuela created one of…
-
The Commerce Comet After Dark: The Wild, Unfiltered Life of Mickey Mantle
By Bill Coleman By the time the stadium lights dimmed in the Bronx, another show was just getting started! The All-American Star Who Didn’t Fit the Mold On the field, Mickey Mantle was the embodiment of postwar baseball greatness with switch-hitting power, Oklahoma charm and the centerpiece of the New York Yankees dynasty. Off the field, he was something…
-
The History of Baseball Video Games
BP Note: This is the second of our two-part post. Please access the first half post covering pinball machines linked here: The History of Baseball Pinball Machines. By Bill Coleman From Pixels to Pennants: The Evolution of Baseball Video Games Baseball, with its measured pace and statistical soul, has always seemed like a natural fit…
-
The History of Baseball Pinball Machines
By Bill Coleman BP Note: This is a two-part post. The second half will cover baseball video game history, which we will release on Friday, May 15th. Silver Balls & Fastballs: The Lost Art of Baseball Pinball – Where the Arcade Meets the Ballpark There’s a certain magic in the sound of a pinball machine—the…
-
Not so Fast Times on the Injured List: The Velocity Dilemma
Pitching injuries in MLB are up. Way up! We covered MLB pitching injuries from a couple of angles previously (here and here), but this article from a year ago shows the mounting evidence. Specifically, this chart from that same article clearly shows a steady increase of pitching injuries over the past twenty years. The article sums…
-
Where have you gone, Jackie Jensen? A city no longer turned its lonely eyes to you…
By Bill Coleman The Reluctant Star of the Red Sox My mother grew up near Fenway Park in Boston. Back in the day, they would open the gates after the 7th inning stretch so kids could come in and watch the end of the games. So my mom would run over and sit in the…
-
Less is More
We are all excited that a new baseball season has just begun. With that said, it will not be too long before some of us will be asking how much is enough? For comparison purposes let’s look at the current and recent seasons, as well as seasons from the past in terms of length. The…
-
Wins and Innings
On October 31, 1973 Tom Seaver of the New York Mets became the first Cy Young winner to not win at least 20 games. Seaver only missed that mark by one win after recording a record of 19-10 for the 1973 season. How times have changed. There has not been a 20 game Cy Young…